The communications industry is rapidly changing to adjust to emerging technologies and ever increasing customer demand. This customer demand for new applications and increased performance of existing applications is driving communications network and system providers to employ networks and systems having greater speed and capacity (e.g., greater bandwidth). In trying to achieve these goals, a common approach taken by many communications providers is to use packet switching technology.
Reliably communicating information in a network is important. Different techniques are employed, including those included in a protocol used to communicate packets, as well as path protection for being able to quickly reroute traffic when a particular path no longer becomes available.